April 2011 DDC - Page 3

[mamapigeon]

Whew, it's been a while! The holidays went really well here, though Wyatt loved pulling things off the tree. One fun thing we did was have the tree lights plugged in to an outlet that is controlled by a switch so that he could turn them on and off. That was a huge hit!

Lots of 4 and 5 word sentences here! I'm amazed at how quickly words are being acquired these days. The current obsession around here is building towers out of duplos. I thought cars were going to last longer, but Wyatt seems much less interested in them now.

Still not much luck with using a potty, but I haven't done much with it. Kind of waiting for warmer weather.

Anyone else still nursing? I don't think Wyatt will be stopping anytime soon, but I am quite ready to nightwean. I think it'll be up to him though.

TTC was successful here, so it looks like Wyatt is going to be a big brother! Most of the time he doesn't say much about the pregnancy, but will occasionally come up out of the blue and pat my stomach and give it a kiss. I'm hoping the spacing will be good! Anyone else planning on TTC soon?

[minkajane]

Congratulations, Pigeon! Definitely no TTC here, at least until Abby is out of diapers. And she seems to have no interest in the potty, so it will be a while, lol.

Still nursing here. I think she'd be completely heartbroken if I weaned her. DS was only nursing a couple of times a day at this age, but DD nurses at least 3-4 times, more if I'm off work or she's not feeling good. When she wakes up or I get home from work, I don't get a "Good morning" or "Hi, Mommy!" or anything. It's just, "NUMMIES!!!!!"

Abby's getting so independent. I want her to be my little baby a while longer! She refuses to let me carry her unless she's exhausted and most of the time she won't even put up with the stroller. She wants to walk. She wants to do everything for herself and gets really upset when I have to help her. Unless she wants to be helped. But then I'm supposed to know she wants me to help her. And then she gets upset that I DIDN'T help her. LOL.

[pattimomma]

I can't believe we are so close to birthday number two! Abbey still weighs less than 20 pounds but she is outgrowing her 18month size clothes via her height. She doesn't look too thin so I have just accepted that she is an itty bitty.

Lots of talking, doing puzzles, drawing (she calls it writing) and playing with baby dolls for her. No nursing since the first birthday. I work full time and travel for work so I was glad we made it that long!

TTC will probably start in April with the second birthday. Most of my other kids are right around three years apart and I like that spacing.
 

[mamapigeon]

Thanks Minkajane!  I'll admit I'm nervous about possibly having 2 in diapers, but I'm hoping Wyatt will be ready to potty train this summer. I'm not too nervous though, we've been using sposies since around 13 mo (he outgrew the largest cloth diaper size I could find!) so I don't have to worry about diaper laundry until August.

Approximately how tall are your toddlers? I think Wyatt is around 37 inches, but I haven't gotten a perfect measurement. I've been ignoring charts for a while now so I'm not quite sure what is "normal". I may have to look that up for fun.

It sounds like there are a lot of exciting new things going on for everyone! Anyone going parks/playgrounds a lot these days (maybe not in the Midwest at this time of year...)? We go about 2x a week, when it's sunny.

[Blanca78]

Hi Everyone!

As I type this I'm listening to Eliza chatter away on the baby monitor--she usually is asleep an hour ago for her nap. I pray this does not mean she might be moving toward giving up her nap...she sounds VERY cheerful up there. I hear her talking to her stuffed bunny.

Congrats, MamaPigeon! Very exciting news!

I think we are officially ready to TTC. This month was a bust because DH was out of town at the crucial time, but I'm fine with that. I've felt a lot of ambiguity about a second child, but now I think I really want one. At the same time, I feel released from all the anxiety and obsessiveness that characterized Eliza's conception. We'll see if that lasts ;)

Lots of talking here, too--it seems like every day she comes up with more complex sentences. It's incredible to witness. Over Christmas break she started referring to herself in the third person constantly, but within a month the first person pronoun had slipped in and now it's "I want this, I want that."

I think I would like to wean her. She nurses before bed, in mornings, at most naptimes, and then occasionally other times. There's no real urgent need to wean but I think I'm just ready to have a break, especially if we're planning another baby. At the same time, I don't want it to be traumatic for her so I have to think about how to approach it.

MamaPigeon--Eliza was 32 inches in early January, which put her at about the 40th percentile for height. So my guess would be Wyatt's on the tall side, but I'm no expert!

I think we're ready to start potty training. She announces her poops and has started announcing when she's peeing and talking about the potty.

Here's a recent photo of her "reading."

[mamapigeon]

Hi everyone, hope things are going well in toddlerland. How are the birthdays going? Any exciting plans now that the toddlers are older?

We're probably going to have a Thomas themed birthday for Wyatt, but keep it to a minimum. Maybe an outing to the zoo, or something similar.

Blanca- Have you started potty training? Your last post sounded promising! I hope your ttc is going well!

The big thing here is that we finally got Wyatt out of our bed! It was much easier than we expected, we just went to Ikea, picked out a bed frame for his mattress, talked it up, let him help build it, promised him Thomas bedding, and voila, the little guy only wakes once a night to nurse!

On the height front, Wyatt is in the 97th percentile. He seems to be stretching out again though, so who knows?

[minkajane]

Hi! How's everybody doing? I can't believe Abby will be 2 in three days! We're having a joint party with DH's grandma, who has a bday just a few days apart from DD's. We had a joint party last year and it was a blast. From us, DD is getting a wooden dollhouse that folds up and can be carried, a copy of The Cat in the Hat, and a stuffed Harry the Bunny. And my coworker's mom is going to make us an Elmo cake, which I'm VERY excited about. :-)

No potty success yet. Abby is adamantly against it. I have a feeling she'll just decide one day to use the potty and that will be that. She's very interested in it, knows what's going on, and demands to flush, she just doesn't want to do it herself.
 

Here she is in her birthday dress. We've tried to get pictures done but every time we make an appointment DD falls and gets a scratch on her face or DS spills paint all over his hands or both kids manage to bust their lips while roughhousing. I guess the universe is conspiring against pictures!

I'm having so much fun with this age. She learns new things every day. She calls the colors by the names of the Sesame Street characters that are that color. Her drawings are now starting to resemble what she says they are (if you squint a bit, lol!). She talks like she's four or five. She's a total blast. Hope everybody else is having as much fun!

[pattimomma]

We had Abbey's birthday party last weekend, I can't believe our babies are already two! She had a great time at her party. It was a dinosaur theme and she got dinosaurs as presents from us. She is dinosaur crazy! It all started out innocently with Dinosaur Train and then we took her to a natural history museum, from there she wanted to look at images of real dinosaurs on the computer. Cartoon images were no good. Next thing I know she is watching Jurassic Park with her brothers and sisters. Her favorite thing now is watching Walking with Dinosaurs the documentary from Discovery Channel. Maybe I have a budding paleontologist on my hands!
 

[mamapigeon]

Minkajane, Abby looks so cute in her dress! It sounds like you had a fun party planned! Did it end up going well?

I agree with you, this age is a blast! Real conversations and preferences for certain activities, such fun!

Patti, the dinosaur party sounds terrific and it's so cute that Abbey likes Walking with Dinosaurs! How does Abbey like her toy dinosaurs? I can remember all of the kids in my generation being interested in dinosaurs, maybe caused by Land Before Time.

Wyatt's birthday went well- we took him to the zoo, and then he wanted to go to a play cafe. We didn't end up doing much partying after all, just enjoyed cake and ice cream and opened presents in the evening.

I really love the more developed interests at this age! Right now Wyatt is really interested in rocks (he's actually learning their names! We may have to join a rock and mineral club), bats (he sleeps with the bat in the picture above), and the Magic School Bus (there are a lot of full episodes on youtube).

Oh, has anyone noticed how much more fun it is to go places with a 2 year old? Last weekend we took Wyatt to see some local waterfalls and the major dam in our area. It went really well- he loved having a picnic and getting to run around and see some new places.

Hope everyone has a great Mother's Day!

[minkajane]

The party went great. Even the part where my coworker stopped by with his 18mo and the two toddlers had an epic battle over the toy shopping cart. It was hilarious!

We have a major problem going on right now, though. Abby has learned how to remove her pants. When she figured out how to unzip her sleepers we switched to pants for bedtime since she couldn't get them off. Then yesterday I walked into her room and stepped right into a puddle. There she was sitting on her bed wearing nothing but a t-shirt. Take a wild guess what the puddle was. She's done it twice more since then. So today I bought her a pack of onesies. I wonder how long it will be before she can undo the snaps. What is with toddlers' love of being naked all the time?